Here is my review after 3 months of the 10 keyword service, for two different sites (different niches/categories).
Both sites are 3 years old without any previous artificial linking work. They both had some natural links (from real people, not me) from some industry-related forums previous to starting this service, and probably some random links from scraper sites, etc. But certainly no black hat stuff, no spun content, xrumer, etc. etc. type junk.
To be fair, neither of the sites were ranking for any of the targeted keywords. Both sites ranked for some long tail keywords.
The keywords targeted range from low to medium to high competition. Some of them should have been "easier" to rank than others. But as you all know, even the numbers don't tell the whole store when it comes to keyword competition.
First site started back at the end of January. I switched half of the keywords after a month (my faulty keyword research). I had seen 3 keywords start to rank. 2 were in the top 10. I was getting excited! I guess I was on the "old" system, because I didn't get very many ranking reports. Around the beginning of April (almost 3 months into it), my rankings dropped. They bombed. I emailed John and he said to cancel the subscription and he would continue the service another month, for free. That was nice of him, but during this month, there was no improvement. This was all "pre-penguin". I continued to rank for long tail keywords I ranked for before trying the service. Here is what John had to say about this drop "They were ranking, and suddenly seemed to disappear. Not sure why. Shouldn't be a penalty. I don't see any suspicious links at all. Sometimes sites do this and then reappear. Tell you what. Cancel the subscription and we will continue to link for a bit to see what happens."
Second site started in February, a month after the first site. (Remember I saw good initial results with the first site, so I signed up for a second package). After a couple weeks, some of the keywords started showing some rankings. Nothing to write home about, but I was planning to be in this for at least 3 months and I hoped a lot longer. Out of 10 keywords, only 5 ever showed a rank increase. 1 of those increased for about 2 weeks then dropped. So really 4 of the 10 keywords showed improvement/started to rank. The big issue I had, however, was that after increasing for a while, these 4 keywords either stagnated or began to drop. I had to cancel this subscription as well, because I just wasn't seeing good progress.
I would be willing to be in a program like this for the "long haul", if I saw some good momentum. But, with the first site, a few keywords got ranked then the bottom fell out. There was no other "linking campaign" going on at the same time. Content was slowly updated as usual (articles and forum posts). Another month went by with no improvement.
The second site started off good but only 4 of 10 keywords ranked and I would say the results were weak and the last month the trend was downward (worse ranking).
I committed $1200 for both of these sites, and was prepared to spend more had I seen an upward trend. But all I saw was one site drop out totally, and the other site stagnate and start to slide back. It's hard to keep a $200/month/site subscription in effect when your keywords are sliding. On one hand, you're asked to have faith and be in it for at least 3 months, but on the other hand, you're shelling out the money and your keywords are sliding backwards.
I'm sure John can chime in on the exact timing and how long it takes for accounts to be set up once you order, but I paid for 3 months of both sites, and the results were definitely a downward trend. So whether it was 2.5 months or 3 months of actual work, I can't say, since there are no link reports.
I know that it must be hard to be in this business and not have control over your clients' on-site SEO and whether they are using other services at the same time. While my sites aren't going to set the world on fire, they do have unique content, are 3 years old, have forum posts (from real users) and articles on them. Second site has had a couple articles picked up by Google News (not any of the keywords I had in this service). I have webmaster tools on both of them and have never received any penalty notices. I do not use google analytics on them, rather, I use another analytics package.
Maybe others are having good results, and/or maybe there's something glaringly wrong with my sites, but my results were unsatisfactory. The only big recommendation John made for my sites was to start using Google authorship. He never said there was anything majorly wrong with on-site SEO. With the first site, the one that dropped big time, he said he didn't see any suspicious links.
Some SEOs offer guarantees of top ranking, or guarantees of increases or guarantees of satisfaction. But when you click on a sales thread like this one, and you're told "I'm not going to bore you with the same old BS sales thread. If you want FIRST page rankings, this service is for you." and see screen captures of google SERPs with #1 spots, you tend to expect a lot!
Getting the first site's rankings totally bombed and the second site with 4 out of 10 keywords ranked is no where near my expectations. I truly believe I had realistic expectations.
Here is the final ranking for site #2 after 3 months of this service:
KW1: 22
KW2: 41
KW3: 47
KW4: 107
KW5: -
KW6: -
KW7: -
KW8: -
KW9: -
KW10: -
I tried to keep this review as factual as possible, but I thought a thorough review was in order. Good luck to you!
